The Mayor presented Kurt with the trophy for first place—a cup of such proportions that Worm said afterward it was big enough to boil a haggis in. When Kurt had accepted it and expressed his thanks, he paused for a minute, looked around the room, and said, "Most of you people here tonight are drivers or mechanics or fans who are interested in sports-car racing. It's a new sport in the United States, but it is rapidly developing to the point where it's becoming a national sport. Its long-range results will be better cars, with more safety features and better drivers.
"Some of you guys, like me, have been in the game a long time. We know that it isn't the winner who makes the race. It's all the other competitors who are in there trying to win and their mechanics who put in a lot of unpaid work fixing up their cars. It takes just as much guts to lose a race as it does to win one. What I'm trying to say is that it's the effort that matters and the courage that goes into it. Not the result.
"In this connection, I think there's one driver here tonight who is more entitled to this trophy than I. Before I mention his name, I'll tell you something about him. He's a pretty young guy, and he's been racing something less than a year.
"He didn't drive any well-known make of car. In fact, the car he drove had a hundred per cent accident record. It had been on the track only twice before. The first time its steering went out. The second time the brakes failed and the driver, Jimmy Randolph, was killed.
"Randy believed in that car, and a lot of us were asked to race it after his death. I was one of the people asked, and I refused. I refused because I didn't trust it, and I believed that it might crack up again. A lot of the rest of us turned the car down for the same reasons.
"But one guy didn't turn it down. He probably had the same doubts and fears to overcome that we had. But he had the guts to put them aside and drive the car anyway.
"He drove a magnificent race, despite his inexperience. And he brought a great new car to American tracks. It's hardly necessary for me now to identify either the car or the driver. But I will do so anyway. The car is the Black Tiger and the driver, Woody Hartford—"
If Kurt was going to say any more, he didn't get a chance for fully ten minutes. Cheer after cheer filled the banquet room, and Tom and another man on Woody's left picked him up and stood him upon a chair for everyone to see. Woody's legs were trembling again, but this time he didn't care.
When some order was finally restored, Kurt continued. "Just before this banquet," he said, "without Woody's knowing anything about it, some of the other drivers and I had a meeting with the track officials and those who donated this trophy. We all agreed that while I might have won it by being first, the guy who really deserves to get it is young Woody Hartford. So come right over here, Woody, and take this trophy, for it really belongs to you."
Woody got down shakily from the chair and took the trophy. He didn't know what to say, and for five minutes he didn't have to say anything for the cheering went on for that time. When finally there was enough silence for him to make himself heard, all he could get out was, "Gee. Thanks."